Plagiarism and Software for Plagiarism Detection

Srce undertook Analysis of Comercial Software for Plagiarism Detection in order to help higher education institutions with the selection of such software, but also to encourage debate on this very actual and unavoidable topic.

Plagiarism, i.e. ethics in education in general, has been a frequent topic of discussion in recent years. In 2015, aware of the trends in education, European Council established a Pan-European Platform for Ethics, Transparency and Integrity in Education (ETINED). One of its missions is to protect, develop and support the academic integrity, especially the fight against plagiarism. Academic integrity among higher education institutions is highly important due to the increasing number of students, as well as the growing competition among universities.

Plagiarism detection software is an important element of a systematic plagiarism detection. Plagiarism detection software has many advantages, such as the possibility to review a large volume of papers stored in repositories in a short period of time, to do similarity checks as well as to create reports that can be used as certificates of originality.

Universities that had implemented the plagiarism detection software noticed that the use of software also contributes to the raise of awareness about ethics among students and that students pay more attention while paraphrasing, referencing or citing the work of other authors. It should be noted that the software is only a tool used by teachers, researchers, students and other responsible persons in the system of science and higher education in the analysis and decision-making on the possible existence of plagiarism.